Recording media has vastly multiplied in recent times, to the extent that providing storage means for individual ones of the media in a manner that protects the media from damage and destruction or deterioration of the information recorded on the media, has become a major industry.
One of the more common types of storage products for recording media of the disk type are the “clam shell” containers. These containers comprise at least one tray (or envelope) which is removably disposed within a front and back cover. The covers for these containers vary widely in design and/or structure, but in each instance, the concept is to house the disk(s) between protective hinged top and bottom covers, these being somewhat akin to hinged clam shells, hence the appellation “clam shell” containers.
In the prior art, it is known to form plastic containers comprising top and bottom hinged trays, wherein one or both of the trays are provided with means for releasably securing a disc thereon. Also in the prior art, it is known to mount these trays on a “book cover” such that the trays effectively become pages in a book. Both the hinged trays and the “book” type containers suffer from problems relating to the ready opening and closing of the container. Ribbons tied about the girth of the closed container halves, “hook and loop” means, and other devices has been offered as means for releasably holding the container halves together. Such devices are less than desirable with respect to their ease of use. Mating latch elements on the container halves have been offered as a solution to closing and opening the container to gain access to the disk(s) stored inside the container. Particularly, heretofore, the means employed to latch the hinged elements of the container to one another when in the folded (closed) attitude either are difficult to place in register to effect latching and/or do not hold the container halves closed in a manner which requires inordinate efforts to open the container. It has also been proposed that latch means be provided on more than one side of the container halves, each latch being relatively weak in holding power, but with the combination of latches being sufficiently strong to hold the container closed during normal use. Unfortunately, this concept suffers from racking of the container halves as the first latch is loosed, then the second latch is loosed, and so on. Over time, these latches tend to fail.